If the steady stream of email we've received is any indication, last week's publication of the article Aperture future in question as Apple axes bulk of team, by Mac rumour web site Think Secret, caused a measure of angst among early Aperture adopters as well as those who had been weighing whether to pony up US$299 to give Apple's pro image management software a try.

Though the article text was somewhat less apocalyptic about Aperture's future than the article's headline might suggest, the interpretation among photographers we've heard from, as well as the many publications that picked up the story, was that Aperture was at death's door.

In an interview earlier today, we asked Kirk Paulsen, Apple's Senior Director of Professional Applications Product Marketing, for an Aperture status report. His response was unequivocal: "Reports of Apple reducing its commitment to Aperture are totally false. In fact, we've got more people working on Aperture right now than ever before." To the question of whether there would be major new releases of the application going forward, he was equally clear: "Absolutely, without question."

Apple today also released Aperture 1.1.1. More information on that is in a separate article.